Check out the article in the latest NEA magazine you should have gotten in
the mail at your home address. It's on pages 30-34, titled 'They're Number
One.' I think it's time, in this global economy, to look outside our
borders for some innovative educational answers for improvement. I was
fascinated by this article about school improvement in Finland. It seems
like an awesome model, especially since their schools were considered as
failing and now are considered #1 in the world. Put that in your 'ThinkBig' and ....
I did read this article and I too was impressed. It's been a few weeks since I read it so the details blur, but I think that it is indicative of the need for "the pedulum" to start swinging back the other direction in education. In less nebulous terms, we need to start looking at education and students more holistically and less as a compilation of numbers. Students are in a global future and need perspectives on our subjects, as well as a middle ground that builds skills with focused tests AND holistic project based education. Shouldn't there be a middle ground? Shouldn't teachers have some control of all this instead of just policy makers? This reminds me of a talk that I listened to on ted.com on why we make rules. http://www.ted.com/talks/lang/eng/barry_schwartz_on_our_loss_of_wisdom.html Check it out if you can, but the essence is that rules prevent incompetence, but also inhibit excellence. The talk goes on to spell out that real excellence is not defined by job responsibilities, but by how we perform our job with emotional intelligence. If we all truly excelled to this standard, could we have more freedom? I want to do well and I know you do too. ...not sure I've made sense, but I'm starting to ramble so I'll shut up and let someone else throw their two cents in. - BC
I did read this article and I too was impressed. It's been a few weeks since I read it so the details blur, but I think that it is indicative of the need for "the pedulum" to start swinging back the other direction in education. In less nebulous terms, we need to start looking at education and students more holistically and less as a compilation of numbers. Students are in a global future and need perspectives on our subjects, as well as a middle ground that builds skills with focused tests AND holistic project based education. Shouldn't there be a middle ground? Shouldn't teachers have some control of all this instead of just policy makers? This reminds me of a talk that I listened to on ted.com on why we make rules. http://www.ted.com/talks/lang/eng/barry_schwartz_on_our_loss_of_wisdom.html Check it out if you can, but the essence is that rules prevent incompetence, but also inhibit excellence. The talk goes on to spell out that real excellence is not defined by job responsibilities, but by how we perform our job with emotional intelligence. If we all truly excelled to this standard, could we have more freedom? I want to do well and I know you do too. ...not sure I've made sense, but I'm starting to ramble so I'll shut up and let someone else throw their two cents in. - BC